


Secret Universe

by Miss_Black91



Category: I Medici | Medici: Masters of Florence (TV)
Genre: M/M, Master/Servant, Shame, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 21:10:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13644516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Black91/pseuds/Miss_Black91
Summary: He believed in Cosimo de' Medici, and he believed in him over anything else on earth. There was nothing above him.





	Secret Universe

He wasn’t especially religious. Well, he put his faith in God every single time he dived into battle, he knew that having God by his side couldn’t hurt, he wasn’t stupid. But he didn’t think that God had a direct effect on every aspect of his life, as a lot of people he knew seemed to think. He believed in the hand of God in another way, he believed that his image had an influence on people, a good influence on how people behaved. He really believed that evil would reign much more on earth if people didn’t believe that there was a God watching them. At least, with the image of an omnipresent God who could see your every action, who could hear your every single thought, the human race had a kind of salvation: not because they wanted to be good, but because there was God, and God was always watching. 

Marco believed in the human hand behind what happened on his everyday life, the good and the bad things. Human kindness, and specially on the human capacity for evil, the human power of perversity and selfishness, human envy, human rage. The human capacity to doom itself, he believed in that too. He saw, daily, how humankind could be absolutely destructive, how humanity, blinded by thirst for power, could throw away every single good thing that they could possibly have. Human capacity for violence against other human being was astonishing. Human depravity against human bodies. How men could hurt and leave permanent scars on each others. How humans could take human lives as if they were taking grapes. Humans could destroy other humans. Humanity destroyed itself. 

And ‘destructive’ was a funny yet truthful word to define himself. He was slowly destroying himself simply by being absolutely and utterly stupid. And why was he stupid? Okay then. He was stupid because, for him, there was a force that was higher than anything else. Higher than God, than human evil. He believed in Cosimo de' Medici, and he believed in him over anything else on earth. There was nothing above him. Nothing higher than the word of Cosimo, and Cosimo was the center of his Universe. 

That was highly self-destructive and he knew it. And he didn’t even care. His belief in Cosimo prevented him from caring about himself and his own sanity, and that was something that couldn’t be stopped: it was such a strong faith. There was no doubt, because if doubt threatened to come over him, if his steps lost their strength, if he felt that his voice was shaken, he thought of him and doubt became a distant ghost, it left without leaving any track. When he thought of Cosimo’s face, looking at him with a smile and pride on his face, when he thought of all the trust that Cosimo put every day on him, all the possible doubt in the world turned to nothing, turned to ashes. 

Cosimo’s faith on him was a blessing, one that Marco wasn’t going to let go easily (death would be better than letting go). One day it would cost him his life, and he knows that that day he will give it gladly. Because it certainly would be for something higher than an invisible faith in an invisible God: it would be for Cosimo, and for all that Cosimo meant in his life. And Cosimo was real, was in front of him, was his world. When he saw his master suffering, when he saw him worried, when he saw him having to wear all the weight of his family on his shoulders, he wished that he could take all of that and wear it himself. He would do it gladly, just to see him better, just because he cares, he worries, he wants Cosimo's life to be less hard.

He would put himself between a sword and Cosimo. Of course he would do it, but he wouldn’t do it because Cosimo was his master. There was that detail, of course, yes, but he would do it because he felt inside him the need of doing so. He had to protect Cosimo. Marco lived for Cosimo. He breathed for Cosimo. And he prefered living a thousand times, but if he needed to die for Cosimo to live, so be it. 

Sometimes, he wondered if Cosimo realised what he meant for him. He sincerely hoped that he would never, ever know. That would make things difficult. One thing was to fantasise about your master sneaking into your bed in the middle of the night (he could even feel his weight on him, or under him, he didn’t care about the order of things, he thought about Cosimo’s smell and his breath and damn, there he was again, a hand inside his pants dealing with thoughts that shouldn’t even cross his mind, never, ever), and something very different was actually telling him about it. He was stupid, for sure, but he wasn’t  _ that  _ stupid. He wore his sin (because it was an awful act, it was a shameful passion, it wasn’t natural and he knew it, he knew it, he knew it… and yet it felt like the most natural thing in the world), and he wore it in secret. 

Marco Bello enjoyed what he could. The little moments that he got with his master. When Cosimo shared confidences with him, when he saw Cosimo trusting him above almost anyone else. The intimate moments that they shared, even if they were as master and servant, or even, maybe, friends? He took those moments and he tried to make the most of them, as he knew that they were all that he would ever get. It wasn’t difficult to enjoy his moments with Cosimo, in fact it was the easiest thing to do. The difficulty was when he realised of the limits, that was when things became hard. It shouldn’t be difficult, it shouldn’t be hard. It shouldn’t be there. 

And sometimes, he had dreams. Dreams that lasted forever and were too short at the same time. Dreams that most of the time stayed with him all day, dreams that he needed to push away so he could focus on something else than them. Dreams in which there were no barriers, no master and servant, no sin, no secrets, no hidden stories. Dreams in which he did not need to be silent forever. Dreams in which his desires and passions were not a dirty secret to be hidden. Sometimes they were just dreams about Cosimo and himself, just them, doing everything and nothing at the same time. His dreams were all he had, and maybe they also were an added weight, as they were showing him possibilities and alternate universes that would never become real. 

“Marco, you coming?” Cosimo asked, pulling him out of his thoughts about the man himself. “You seemed to be very far away for a moment there.” 

_ Oh you have no idea.  _

“I was a little lost in my thoughts,” Marco Bello said. “But I’m ready now”. The smile that he saw in Cosimo’s face when he said that was worth a million. And he lived for it. He lived to stand up and walk behind Cosimo, to look after him, to protect him, and to make sure that he made it back home, safe and sound, with his family. And he lived to see how he lived his life, how he grew strong and powerful, how he grew to be even better than his own father. He lived for the Medici, and he lived for Cosimo. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope that you enjoy reading this as much as I loved writing it :)


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